Buying The Bottom? Grayscale Concludes 2020 With Huge XRP Purchase and 10x in AUM

The leading digital asset manager, Grayscale, has taken full advantage of the developments within the cryptocurrency field with record-breaking inflows. The company’s assets under management (AUM) have increased ten-fold throughout 2020 to above $20 billion.

Grayscale’s Best Year To Date

Founded in 2013, Grayscale is among the largest gateways for institutional investors to receive exposure to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies without worrying about storing the assets.

The company registered its best year to date in 2020 as institutions began entering the field with more substantial purchases.

According to Grayscale’s Q1 2020 report, the asset manager ended 2019 with an AUM of about $2 billion. However, the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies and the skyrocketing prices have resulted in a massive yearly growth to over $20 billion in AUM.

Grayscale’s founder and CEO Barry Silbert highlighted the 10x annual growth on his Twitter account:

We did it! $20 billion in AUM to end 2020, up from $2 billion a year ago

Super proud of @Sonnenshein and the rest of the @Grayscale team

Here’s to another 10x in 2021! Happy new year everybody https://t.co/KneF4BvPFO

— Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) December 31, 2020

As the graph above illustrates, bitcoin remains the company’s most attractive product. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust accounts for about $17,5 billion of all assets (about 87%). In comparison, the second most popular product, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, has a share of a little over $2 billion.

Strategists from the giant US multinational investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co recently highlighted the crucial role of Grayscale for the cryptocurrency industry. The analysts even warned that prices could tumble if the inflows in Grayscale’s products decrease.

Record-Breaking XRP Purchases

Information shared by the monitoring resource CryptoWhale asserted that Grayscale had taken advantage of the recent XRP developments with a massive purchase at a lower price.

As reported by CryptoPotato in December, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ripple for conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered security offering. Multiple cryptocurrency exchanges started delisting XRP, and the token’s price tumbled by about 70% to below $0.20 in a few weeks.

CryptoWhale data indicated that Grayscale had completed its largest purchase of XRP – 12.48 million coins on New Year’s Eve. The asset’s price reacted immediately with a 20% surge that took it from $0.20 to $0.24.